The only group I could find in my 20's had a GM who insisted that we weren't allowed to take the Resources merit, because "no one with money would ever go on adventures. They'd just sit around the house all day." Finding a good tabletop RPG circle is always a crap shoot, but White Wolf had some terrific IP's.

Blade & Soul's North American and European version will be launching on January 19th.

I'm looking forward to checking this out for the action combat, though it's going to be the quest types which determine whether I bother staying around. Korean MMOs don't have the best reputation when it comes to inventive or engaging quests....

It probably helps that the game's sense of humor meshes with my own. I don't know if it's still there (as they shortened the tutorial before the game went Free 2 Play) but I knew I'd like Wildstar when I chose a Dominion character and one of the first cut-scenes involved a group of prisoners from the other faction being subjected to weird experiments by a mad scientist that ultimately turned them into rampaging monsters.

Also: The Dominion's amusingly insensitive portrayal of the other faction in their ship's holo-chamber.

The dust has more or less settled since Paradox's acquisition of White Wolf and its properties from EVE Online developer CCP. Here's what has shaken out:

Paradox has a new subsidiary company, called White Wolf Publishing. It exists to create new products based on the Classic World of Darkness IP's in every medium. They're talking about pen and paper RPG's, video games, and television projects all being part of what these brands could potentially grow into. No specific titles have been announced yet, but they have a snazzy new video announcing something, narrated by a Vampire, a Werewolf, and a Mage. Call it a "vision statement" for what the new White Wolf is calling its "One World of Darkness:"

Onyx Path retains its license to create books on the New World of Darkness, which has been rebranded as "Chronicles of Darkness" in order to avoid cross-brand confusion, and is working on new games that can't be bought out from under it, including a post-apocalyptic swords-and-sorcery title with anthropomorphic animals (reminiscent of Palladium Books' "After The Bomb") and a swashbuckling-on-Mars title that obviously draws a lot of inspiration from the worlds of the John Carter stories.

For those who haven't yet tried the "create your own adventure and be a DM" Sword Coast Online game (which includes me), it's going to be free to play over the weekend on steam (where it'll also be available for a discounted price).

During the Steam Free Weekend, players have the opportunity to experience all of SCL’s 40+ hour story campaign, delve into more than 1,500 community made modules, or create their own adventures for others to enjoy. The entire game will be open, online and free to play.

So the Force Awakens got me balls deep into the Old Republic. I'm loving it, because I never finished the storylines when I played it before, hell I never even got to starships. One big problem though. I have to PAY to unlock more than two quickbars?!?! I can unlock them with Cartel Coins which I CAN get in game, but now I have to research how to farm those so I can figure out how to unlock the games fucking UI without paying money?? Even hiding your characters helmet costs money to do, but at least that's a cosmetic thing which I'm OK with being gated.

Fuck me. Keep bullshitting me around like this Bioware and I'm switching over to Wildstar.

Ha. You, me and Jacob Singer have all done the same thing after watching TFA. I've subscribed for at least a month, just because the game is so unforgiving to F2P players. I used to think it had one of the best F2P models. God knows what I was thinking. It's actually got one of the worst. You can't even sprint for the first few levels unless you're a subscriber!

The worst part is I TOTALLY just signed up for a sub. If it wasn't for the fucking movie rocketing my obsession into overdrive I would have been like "fuuuuuuuck thiiiiiiis". I play a Blizzard MOBA called Heroes of the Storm, and that game has one of the best f2p models I've ever seen. Never intrusive, you can always just play enough to afford to buy your own heroes. You can't buy them all easily over night but if you're willing to point the time in you can TOTALLY unlock them without paying a dime. Plus they have really cool skins and stuff for about 3 bucks a pop. For me, a Tyrael skin like this is worth 3 dollars because you're having SO much fun with the game and you're in such a good mood you're totally down to give them money. Funny how happy players feel towards giving f2p games money eh?

As it turns out you CANNOT actually earn Cartel Coins. I figured you got them for doing flashpoints or maybe daily quests. NOPE! You must buy them basically.

If you sub, you get an allotment of cartel coins each month. I have no problem subbing, considering the enjoyment that I get from the game and the benefits that I derive from subbing, so the model doesn't bother me too much.

I did the same. I was starting to get the itch to jump back in and get back to my characters anyway, and TFA pushed me over the edge. The Knights of the Fallen Empire stuff is a great jumping-in point as it's an even more story/solo-centric take on what was a very story-driven game already. It's basically as close to a KOTOR 3 as the MMO frame can accommodate at this point. The amount of effort spent on story is a big factor in me being okay with the sub, especially now that they seems to have revamped levelling and skimmed back a lot of the traditional MMO grind.

What is your favorite stories so far? Right now I love the smuggler, bounty hunter, trooper and imperial agent, weirdly the force users are too boring for me.

I'd personally rank the stories in the following order:

Imperial Agent

Sith Warrior

Sith Inquisitor

Jedi Knight

Smuggler

Trooper

Bounty Hunter

Jedi Consular

The general consensus in the TOR community is that the Agent story is the best and the Jedi Consular story is the worst. Everything else fluctuates based upon personal tastes and so forth. The three that I rank at the bottom are the ones that have stories that are, in my opinion, pretty repetitive and have poorly implemented 'endings'. In the case of the Consular, the voice acting of the leads is also pretty bad.

The Agent story is probably the best written and voice acted, and the plot itself has many fun twists to it. In addition, the companions are all interesting.

The Sith Warrior story is the one that's the most fun to play twice, once LS and once DS, simply because one of the companions is very, VERY different depending upon the way that you go, and the story is also quite different in both paths.

The Sith Inquisitor story is also solid, and it also features some of the best voice acting in the game. The female Inquisitor, in particular, is very snarky and a lot of fun to play.

If you love that, try playing a Jedi Knight DS. Just be a complete bastard. It really throws the expected dialog choices on their head.

I'm serious that you're gonna want to play the Sith Warrior twice, though...once DS, once LS. Indeed, without giving anything away, I'd further suggest that you play a male character DS and a female character LS.

The Old Republic's free model is definitely a "try it to see if you like it, but then we'd really like you to subscribe" model.

The different class stories are different enough that the appeal of each is different. The Sith Warrior is a guy who was born on third base, and has to live up to the investment others have made in him, while the poor Sith Inquisitor is consistently underestimated for his lowly origins and is capable of more than his enemies could imagine. Jedi Guardian and Sith Warrior are action heroes, Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor are explorers of mysticism, but one faction is concerned with protecting the galaxy from the Emperor while the other is laser-focused on jockeying for position in Sith society. The Trooper, Smuggler, Agent, and Bounty Hunter all look at how you find your way in a galaxy that has literal wizards when you're not one, while trying to navigate Space Muggle social strata that the Force-users never have to lower themselves to notice.

There's a lot to chew on at leisure there, and the quality of all the stories lends the game an incredible amount of replayability. For all my griping about the companion grind in the new content, I'm totally planning to revisit this game in the coming months, when I have an internet connection better suited to low ping client-server traffic.

It should also be mentioned: the leveling for TOR has been revamped such that you don't need to do all of the repetitive grinding on planets that you used to do in order to level. Each planet has a class specific storyline AND a planet specific storyline, and those missions are picked up from people with purple mission icons over their heads (and on the map). Just doing those will provide enough leveling for you to get to the endgame at (or ahead of) the level that you need to be. Most of the fedex missions have been flat out deleted from the game, and only a few optional missions (with yellow mission icons) remain for those who want to pick up a little extra XP along the way.

In short, you can now finish a planet in a few hours and be at the level that you need to be. It really helps cut down on the overly repetitive grind.

I wanted to play a Jedi and I have no idea what I'm doing with the Knight as all of the lightsaber moves look visually the same to me (even now, I have no idea if I'm using the single or double strike most of the time). At least with the Consular, hurling rocks at someone looks different to suspending someone in the air.

I wanted to play a Jedi and I have no idea what I'm doing with the Knight as all of the lightsaber moves look visually the same to me (even now, I have no idea if I'm using the single or double strike most of the time). At least with the Consular, hurling rocks at someone looks different to suspending someone in the air.

Fair enough. The Consular (Sage and Shadow) are fun to play (I especially liked the Shadow) in terms of actually PLAYING the game, but the storyline is really quite...dull. Also, the voice acting is awful, especially for the female Consular. Her line readings sound like she's on Xanax...just terrible. The male Consular voice at least has some inflection to it, but that's about it.

If you like that playstyle, try the Sith Inquisitor. It's the evil version of the Consular, and the storyline is better and the voice acting is 100x better. The female Sith Inq is probably my favorite voice actor in the game...really sexy and snarky.

Argh. Why do so many of these MMOs decide to complicate things and change the way your character develops? I just bought a 60 day subscription and re-downloaded SWOTR, and half my icons I so carefully set up are gone, and for some reason all my companions' inventory items were sitting in mail slots (with some ambiguous reason given), and I don't have the slightest clue why. I summoned my healer and she was pantsless, with half of her stuff just sitting in a mail slot, and I didn't have room to download it. Not to mention all the progression changes, legendary whatevers, new confusing mission types, all that shit. I just want to play the game, kill the bad guys, and get my Star Wars on. I don't live here.

I know you need to keep dedicated players, MMOs, but needlessly complicating things doesn't help any of us old-timers when we come back.

Argh. Why do so many of these MMOs decide to complicate things and change the way your character develops? I just bought a 60 day subscription and re-downloaded SWOTR, and half my icons I so carefully set up are gone, and for some reason all my companions' inventory items were sitting in mail slots (with some ambiguous reason given), and I don't have the slightest clue why. I summoned my healer and she was pantsless, with half of her stuff just sitting in a mail slot, and I didn't have room to download it. Not to mention all the progression changes, legendary whatevers, new confusing mission types, all that shit. I just want to play the game, kill the bad guys, and get my Star Wars on. I don't live here.

I know you need to keep dedicated players, MMOs, but needlessly complicating things doesn't help any of us old-timers when we come back.

<shakes fist at cloud>

Actually, I'll address your questions here:

1. You companions' inventory items: the game has been redesigned in terms of companions. All armor and weapons for them are purely cosmetic...they now scale according to your character's levels. As such, you can outfit them in literally anything that you want and it won't effect their ratings. All gear for your companions has been removed and sent to your inbox...you can either re-equip the items, sell them, or let them rot. It's your call.

2. Lack of pants: this is a bug (kinda a funny one) that hasn't been resolved yet. You'll just need to re-equip pants on your companions.

3. Companion Skills: Now, all companions can take on whatever role that you want. None of them are specifically healers, tanks, or dps...you can summon any companion and assign them a role. By default, they'll be healers.

4. Missions: the mission system has been redesigned significantly. Class missions (those specific to your class) and story missions (those specific to the planet's main storyline) are the only ones that you NEED to complete in order to finish the planet at the appropriate level. Those missions are now known as PURPLE missions...the icons floating over NPC heads will be purple in color. Other missions are still yellow, and those are completely extra...no need to do them for leveling, just do them if you want to.

5. Rewards: no more companion armor for rewards. The level synching of the companions makes this unnecessary.

6. Level Synching of your character: Each planet has a level range. If you're too high of a level for your planet, your 'effective level' is reduced so that there's some challenge for you and you'll still get xp.

Ah. That explains why Reasor's reptillian space bro runs around healing me all of the time (which I kind of like).

Just don't do what I did Jacob and have a delete session out of frustration! (Although, with the current xp bonus, it's been remarkably easy to get my first new character to around the same level as the old one in a fairly short amount of time)

7. Attributes: All attributes that were specific to the character classes (Strength, etc) have been combined into one new attribute: Mastery. The secondary attributes (Endurance, Alacrity, etc...) remain for customization and specialization purposes.

8. Heroic Missions: I believe all of them now have solo options and/or have been redesigned to have options for smaller groups.

9. Companion Stories: You no longer have to have a certain degree of companion affection to unlock their stories. Now, they all unlock at specified points in the game, allowing you to complete all of them by end of the main storyline. Affection has been replaced by 'Influence', and you earn this by getting a reaction (approval and disapproval) from actions and conversations. The higher the Influence, the better that they fight, heal you, and craft items.

Just don't do what I did Jacob and have a delete session out of frustration! (Although, with the current xp bonus, it's been remarkably easy to get my first new character to around the same level as the old one in a fairly short amount of time)

Yeah, they have double XP at the moment. It's possible (and easy) to bet at level 65 by the time you reach the end of the main storyline (where you'd usually be level 50 or so). Indeed, a lot of people are leaving Korriban/Tython at level 18+, making the rest of the game an absolute breeze.

1. When a reward is offered, take the crystals/gems that are offered (I know that's now what they're called...the name escapes me.) Use them to trade for armor/hilts/enhancements on adaptive armor pieces. Don't bother taking any armor pieces for rewards..you'll out-level anything around you pretty quickly, and your companion healer will be so over powered that you'll rarely die. Just keep your adaptive armor up to snuff and you're good.

2. Do all missions on Korriban/Tython, including the yellow ones and the heroics. You'll be at a pretty high level when you leave. From then on, just do the purple missions. You'll be finishing planets within a few hours that way.

3. When done with your main storyline: if you're not at level 55 yet, go ahead and hit Makeb for RISE OF THE HUTT CARTEL. Get geared up. When you're feelign good about your gear, skip the rest of Makeb and do SHADOW OF REVAN all the way through. You'll emerge from that with some great gear to get you into KNIGHTS OF THE FALLEN EMPIRE.